Jairam Ramesh's removal as Environment Minister creates uncertainties for domestic environment policy and the deadlocked global climate talks. WHATEVER one may think of its overall impact, the recent Cabinet reshuffle was not exactly a damp squib. Its single most important component was Jairam Ramesh's replacement as the Minister of State with independent charge in the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) by Jayanthi Natarajan, a relative political lightweight with very little...

The Supreme Court has converted a high-powered committee of the Government of India, on the issue of black money, into an SIT under its own direction. This is an expression of no-confidence in the executive. The government’s intention in tackling either the problem of black economy or bringing back the black savings stashed abroad is suspect. According to reports, the money stashed abroad by the corrupt businessmen, politicians and others...

Bellary is only the tip of the rotting earthmound. Can a new proposed legislation clear the air? Two years ago, when the ministry of mines decided to use satellite imaging to survey projects, it unearthed several “unusual activities” across the country. “The amount of mining done and material being exported didn’t match in areas where certain companies had been given licences,” recounts a former senior bureaucrat with the mines ministry....

-The Hindu   Anti-graft legislation has to be backed by a concerted people's movement to effectively check the escalation of corruption in a neo-liberal regime, economist Prabhat Patnaik said on Friday. Delivering the W.R. Varadarajan Memorial lecture on “Neo-liberalism and corruption” organised by the Indian School of Social Sciences, Mr. Patnaik said the move to a neo-liberal regime, which, it was believed, would get rid of corruption, had actually expanded the scope...

In scrapping the Uniform System of School Education (USSE) soon after coming to power, lakhs of students have been taken for a ride by the AIADMK government in Tamil Nadu on flimsy grounds, argued senior counsel M.N. Krishnamani in the Supreme Court on Tuesday. Making his submissions before a three-judge Bench comprising Justice J.M. Panchal, Justice Deepak Verma and Justice B.S. Chauhan, the senior counsel said the Cabinet decision on May...